Senior Applied AI Engineer — Enterprise LLM Systems Leader

Appian; Illinois; On-site; USD 200,000 - 350,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k) match

Paid parental leave

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Life insurance

Disability insurance

ESPP

Job summary

Appian seeks a Principal Applied AI Engineer to lead the engineering of AI automation for large enterprises. Based at the McLean, Virginia headquarters, you will be the technical linchpin for applied AI, shaping production LLM systems, tool use, and end-to-end AI capabilities across multi‑tier applications.

You will drive architecture, deliver prototypes, and mentor engineers while maintaining a strong focus on reliability, performance, and code quality in a collaborative, in-person environment.

Qualifications

• BS in CS required; MS in CS or related field preferred.
• 10+ years of software development experience with BS or 8+ years with MS.
• Hands-on experience designing and operating production LLM systems.
• Deep expertise across code generation, agents, retrieval, and observability.
• Experience using AI coding assistants and evaluating AI-generated code.

Responsibilities

• Architect and build high-performance production LLM systems.
• Lead platform modernization to keep codebase and AI systems cutting-edge.
• Develop and review AI-assisted code to ship faster without compromising quality.
• Drive architecture decisions across multi-tier AI-powered applications.
• Ensure reliability, latency, and scaling through system tuning.
• Radiate best practices and build automation to prevent recurrence of issues.
• Mentor engineers and grow technical capabilities across the team.
• Contribute to technical documentation and knowledge sharing.

Skills

10+ years software development

Production LLM Systems

AI Systems Expertise

Cross‑Team Influence

Communication & Alignment

Education

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science

Master of Science in Computer Science (preferred)

Job description

Appian seeks a Principal Applied AI Engineer to lead the engineering of AI automation for large enterprises. Based at the McLean, Virginia headquarters, you will be the technical linchpin for applied AI, shaping production LLM systems, tool use, and end-to-end AI capabilities across multi‑tier applications.

You will drive architecture, deliver prototypes, and mentor engineers while maintaining a strong focus on reliability, performance, and code quality in a collaborative, in-person environment.